hello

Highest Education Completed: "I graduated high school and was in college for pastoral theology but dropped out before earning any type of degree."

Type Of Business: "My business is based on helping others succeed on the Internet. I can take any Website and increase its profits in one hour or less. I provide one-on-one consulting, group coaching, and numerous e-books, audio tapes, and video-training materials for this goal."

Market: "My ideal customer is someone who wants to earn a living online. I’ve worked with brand-new beginners who don’t even have a product yet up to $30 million corporations. Anyone who is serious about making money online and who understands this is a business which requires work and effort is a potential customer."

Number Of Employees: "Only one other person currently works in my business–my wife."

Hours Worked Per Week During Start Up: "In the beginning, I worked between 40 and 60 hours a week to get my business up and running."

Favorite Business Magazines: DMNews–"This is actually my favorite, although it is more of a newspaper than a magazine. It keeps you up to date with everything going on in direct marketing both online and offline." Money N Profits–"I like this magazine because it’s targeted to the small business entrepreneur. It often contains very well-written articles from Internet marketers and is a good resource for what is hot in small business." Business 2.0–"This magazine mainly covers large Internet corporations, not the small entrepreneurs like us. It is still a good resource to find out what big companies are doing right and wrong in business."

Favorite Business Books Or Authors: Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got by Jay Abraham–"I like this book because it opens your mind to the possibilities in business. There are numerous leverage points in any business and dozens of small changes you can make which immediately boost your profits." If You Can Talk, You Can Write by Joel Saltzman–This is one of the best books on writing I’ve found. Forget everything you’ve heard about how hard it is to write and get this simple explanation on how anyone can become a writer by following a simple system." Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins–"This book has affected virtually every marketer who has read it. It is one of the classics in marketing and it is the foundational material for all direct response businesses. Claude Hopkins shows you how anyone can use advertising as the ultimate leverage in a business."

Relaxes By: "I actually have a lot of little hobbies. One of my favorite things to do to relax is to sit out in my spa. Other times I like to be adventurous and ride my ATV’s through our woods."

Keeps In Shape By: "You caught me. I should exercise more frequently. When it’s not cold out, I like to jog several times a week. In the winter, I always end up gaining weight because I can’t get outside as much. So we’re looking at moving to a warmer climate this year."

Favorite Part Of The Job: "My favorite part of the business is when someone I’ve helped gives me a testimonial and tells me how I’ve changed their life. This happens regularly through e-mail and in person through conferences. It’s one of the greatest feelings there is.

Least Favorite Part Of The Job: "I hate it when something dealing with the technology of my business breaks down. I’ve learned over time that it seems Murphy’s Law lives in computers. Whatever can go wrong eventually will go wrong. So I do multiple back-ups of everything and always try to have a plan B for anything I’m doing in case something breaks down or stops working at an important time."

Companies You Admired: "I don’t really admire companies. I admire the people behind the companies. People who have started at ground zero and built large companies dedicated to helping people are some of the ones I admire the most. This would include people such as Mark Victor Hansen and Anthony Robbins. They’ve motivated, uplifted, and changed the lives of millions through their companies."

Favorite Quotes: Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.–P.T. Barnum; My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.–Peter Drucker; A man’s reputation is the opinion people have of him; his character is what he really is.–Jack Miner

The Person Who Most Influenced His Life: "My biggest influence on my life has been my wife. I’ve been very poor (over $50,000 in debt with no real assets) and I’ve been well-off. She has been with me through it all. Whenever I’ve been depressed, she has been there to motivate me. She has helped me every step of the way, so no one could ever be a bigger influence."

Heroes: "I guess the biggest heroes in my life would be the people from whom I first learned basic direct-marketing principles. When I first started my business online, I learned about direct marketing and direct selling through books and tapes by people such as Ted Nicholas, Bill Myers, Claude Hopkins, John Caples, etc. I wouldn’t specifically call any of them a "hero," but they were the people I originally learned marketing from. So they changed my life.

Special Accomplishments: I don’t really like to take any pride in awards. I’d much rather see results in the lives of my customers. So I consider some of their testimonials my biggest awards, such as one who bought my product and was able to earn enough profit to quit their job in just two weeks and another who did over $30,000 from one of my tips, and another who become an Internet consultant, taking the business they were working with to $400,000 a month.

Months Before Achieving A Profit: I was profitable in business in just under three months from the day I first bought my computer and went online.

It's easy.

That's one of my favorite phrases for describing Internet marketing. Most of the things we do online are easy once you understand them.

I tell this to people in my newsletter, in my books, in tapes, and at conferences. Most people's biggest difficulties are being caused by themselves.

They're trying to complicate it all.

All I've done is create a system. I do the same thing for every web site and project. The funniest part is that when I teach someone my system, they immediately start saying that everything I'm telling them is simply common sense.

Yes...I guess it kind of is...but it works.

Here are a few common sense Internet tips:

1. Find a group of people who want to buy something.

Always find the people who want to buy something first. Give them something for free to get them to sign-up for an opt-in email list. Now you can advertise to them for Free until they tell you to stop. Even if you don't want to sell them anything yourself, you could charge other people for advertising to them through you.

2. Give people a great product for a good price.

Don't sell garbage. Make sure everything you sell is extremely useful to your customers. It should be the highest quality product you can find. Money comes and money goes. Your reputation stays forever.

3. Tell them everything they need to know about your product to make a good decision.

The old marketing phrase is the more you tell, the more you sell. People are still debating this thinking visitors won't read long copy online. They will if they are interested in it...and if you give them good reference points (lots of subheads).

4. Offer them other products and services.

Don't try to get rich offering just one product or service. Develop a whole bunch of backend offers to make to your list. You've worked hard to get them on your list. Offer them more high quality products they'll want to buy. That's where your income comes from.

5. Try different methods.

Don't be stuck with just one advertising method. Don't give up if something you heard doesn't work. Keep trying until you find something which works for selling your products and services. Most times when I advertise a new product, it takes at least a few weeks to find the perfect mix of advertising for it.

6. If something's not working, quit doing it.

Track everything. Make sure that every penny you spend is put to good use. Even if you're not spending money, you should still track all your
free advertising. Don't waste time or money on anything that's not working for you.

Terry Dean, a 5 year veteran of Internet marketing, will Take You By The Hand and Show You Exact Results of All the Internet Marketing Techniques he tests and Uses Every Single Month. http://www.netbreakthroughs.com

Receiving all the traffic in the world isn't going to help you if you don't make sales when the traffic gets to your page.

A mistake that I see people make over and over again is to believe the hype that it is easy to make money online...sign up for several affiliate programs...put up a page...and then place free classified ads.

You cannot just join affiliate programs and try to generate free traffic to them (not in the normal ways at least).

I have been interviewing some successful affiliates lately and have found out an interesting secret...Not a single one of them (not even one that I have found) just joins an affiliate program and puts up links or banners on their web page.

Every one of them does something a little unique. One is a search engine master and spends well over 40 hours a week learning all the intricacies of the search engines. Another is a master publisher who publishes a quality ezine every single day.

Still another model of success is becoming an expert at sending out articles to ezines. You could also create a community atmosphere where people keep coming back to visit through chats, forums, etc. Then, make referrals of affiliate programs.

These types of affiliate techniques work, but what people have been publishing as the easy affiliate opportunity just isn't true.

All of the top affiliates come up with some of their own ideas and lead generation methods...and none of them rely on just placing a few ads here and there. Nor do they just put up another banner on their web page that nobody visits anyway.

If you want to be successful, find someone who is already successful and model them.

HINT: Don't necessarily always do what they say. Find out what they are doing and do that!

1. Some of the successful entrepreneurs are creating products or finding unique products to sell.

Those are the only two ways to be successful on the net. Either sell a product you control (and don't try to sell something people can find at the local Wal-Mart store) or build an audience that you can contact over and over again.

If you created an information, you are one of the unique product sellers. If you publish a growing ezine, you have the audience.

If you got an exclusive on a new golf club, you are a unique product seller. If you run a discussion board that has hundreds of thousands of visits a month, you have an audience.

If you have a product, you just need to find people who have an audience and convince them to become affiliates with you or buy advertising from them.

If you have an audience, you just need to become an affiliate with someone and endorse their products to your audience.

Please Note: Some people do quite well as both having ezines, forums, etc. and also having their own products. They fit in both classes.

It sure is, but I want you to stop and think for a moment. Can you find successful people who don't fit in one of those classes?

You may say, "What about the search engine expert?" The answer is he has an audience. He can generate free leads for ANY product anytime he wants.

If you don't fit into one these groups of online businesses, then you don't have the right vehicle for online success.

You might be the strongest and fastest bicyclist that has ever walked the planet, but no matter how hard you work you don't stand a chance in the Nascar race!

Many of the Internet marketers I meet are just like that bicyclist. They know they can do it if they just work hard enough, but they aren't using the right vehicle for the Internet race.

I always take this time of year to regroup and create new plans for my business. Part of this planning phase is to research and decide where the Internet market is going during the year. Below are some of the observations I have made which should help you in decisions you make for your Internet business.

The honeymoon is over. Investors are requiring online corporations to prove they can earn a profit instead of just generate traffic. So, search engines and other free methods of advertising are beginning to have to change their policies.

Yahoo requires ALL business sites to pay $299 to even be reviewed. Looksmart is charging the same fee. Other search engines are partnering with Overture for the top three of their rankings.

If you think these fees are flukes, watch out. You will find that more and more of the free advertising sources online will be changing over to pay-to-play services.

Does this concern me...Nope, not even a little bit. This just means you will have to be smarter with your advertising, test everything, and work more on making sure your web site can produce sales from the traffic it gets. In other words, your business will have to grow up!

Up until now, text has been the only really logical way of communicating to your visitors. It will continue to be the primary Internet medium for years to come, but 2004 will see a lot more uses for audio online.

We are already testing using audio introductions for our web site and have been speaking with companies running online radio stations. Both show extremely promising results coming up throughout 2004.

Video delivery is still a little while away with too many bandwidth problems to make it a really practical selling tool in 2004. Sure, you can use it, but it will still have problems.

You witnessed one major company after another going out of business during the year 2000. All tech stocks took a nosedive right through the floor as people realized just being on the Net was no guarantee of success. You still have to have a solid sound business plan.

On the Internet you need one other thing that these large companies haven't had...You must have an easily targeted niche market. You cannot focus on selling everyone on the net. This is one of the major differences between the Internet and offline retail stores.

You can sell toothbrushes as Wal-mart because everyone needs them. You cannot sell them online because you can't figure out a niche market just waiting to buy your product. You wouldn't be able to tell me where your "toothbrush" customers most often hang out online. So, you won't be able to cost effectively target them.

The Internet is going to become even more "nichey" as it grows. As we grow by hundreds of millions of more web sites next year, you will have to focus on targeting your "best customer" even more.

We haven't seen a lot of involvement online from "old world" stores. This is going to change in 2004. We are going to see smarter uses of the Internet to combine the advantages of the Internet (free email contact, follow-up, research) with the retail world (product delivery, appearance, etc.).

Watch as stores start collecting email addresses in store for "Specials" they send out. Watch more companies combine online shopping with local same-day deliveries. The smartest uses of the Internet may come from some of these older companies.

Small businesses haven't had to worry about big company competition at all. The big companies were too busy trying to sell to everyone without being able to target anyone.

In 2004 we will see the rise of medium size companies which go after targeted niche markets. They have to if they want to have a chance at succeeding online.

What does this mean for small businesses? It means you will have to clearly define your Unique Web Position and never focus on just trying to have the lowest prices. Try to do something in your niche which can't be easily copied.

The coming years will require you to focus more on a "select" group of loyal customers instead of focusing on the whole world. This will give rise to more loyalty based programs.

Discount clubs and frequent flier programs are extremely successful for the companies using them. Tape, CD, DVD, and book clubs have flourished throughout the past.

The Internet is going to take lessons from these types of services and will give birth to many loyalty based programs of it's own. Membership sites, monthly services, and more are going become the norm during the next year as companies learn they must earn some type of residual income from their customers.

So far we have not really seen any reason why ebooks are better than hard copy books. In 2004, they will start showing some of their advantages including being interactive and instantly updateable.

So far ebooks have only focused on straight text just like hard copy books so the only advantage they can give is the speed of delivery. Watch them take another step forward during 2004 and offer many more advantages giving them a real place in the marketplace.

Terry Dean's Brand New Fr-e eBook, "10 Quick and Easy Ways to Increase Profits to ANY Web Site Overnight!" Reveals More Time Tested Proven Internet Marketing Secrets Than 99% of the Paid Products Available...Showing You Step-By-Step How to Increase Your Traffic, Drop Your Expenses, and Drive Your Profits Through the Roof:
http://www.bizpromo.com

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